I have no delusions of grandeur, I don't consider myself to be an artist (not yet anyway) - especially in a community as artistic as Tiki Central. But I thought I would start my own thread of tiki related junk. Maybe it will inspire some other non-artist to take a shot at self expression, if nothing else I can always serve as a bad example I have already posted much of this cr&p, now it's just consolidated in one pile!

I will see if I can start in chronological order. As a kid, we had some Canary Island Palms in the front yard that shed fronds perfect for carving Tiki masks. This was back in the days where every boy got a pocket knife for his 10th birthday, I guess that doesn't happen anymore.

I took a vacation to Hawaii about 5 years ago and decided a needed a few tikis. Having never done anything like this and, not knowing any better, I took a Ficus log and carved away everything that didn't look like a tiki. They are kind of flat and 2 dimensional, but they're mine. A few months back I carved a matching Spitting Tiki for my fish pond.

_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one

In January of this year, my beautiful wife was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer (she's in remission and doing well now, thank you ) I decided she needed a little piece of paradise to recuperate from surgery and chemotherapy, so I built Leslie's Lanai & Grill
http://mgilbert.net/tiki.html

_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one

To have a proper tiki lanai, you need some tiki mugs. It was this quest that led me to Tiki Central where I found a great group a people. Babalu helped me get started in ceramics and tiki mug making. Please don't consider my lack of talant as a poor reflection on Babalu, He taught me most everything I know, but obviously he didn't teach me everything HE knows

Here's my first try at a tiki mug. I wanted it to match my first carved tiki, sort of a mascot in the grand tradition of Mr Bali Hai.
In a “finishing frenzy”, and not knowing any better, I glazed all my mugs with opaque glaze and pretty much ruined them! So I re-cast a new batch and glazed them with a semi-transparent glaze so that the woodgrain detail shows though. The one one the left is the way it was molded, the one on the right I modified after I pulled it from the mold.
_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one

Here’s a very tacky PartyCity tiki pitcher that I painted with Krylon Plastic Fusion spray paint to make into a slightly less tacky tiki pitcher.

I had the brilliant idea to make some cement tikis using a gaudy Party City wall decoration as a mold. Unfortunately, someone else already had that brilliant idea and had already posted them This seems to be a recurrent theme for me: everytime I think I have thought of something new and post it, I am embarassed to find out someone already did it. I am slowly learning to do a careful search to find out if it really is a brilliant new idea!

_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one

My daughter and I are both allegic to lobster (shrimp & crab too). Monkfish is supposed to be “poor man’s lobster” with the same taste and texture as lobster (although at $20/lb, I’m not sure how many poor men can afford it!). Since “you taste everything with your eyes first”, I made some lobster-tail shaped dishes to cook monkfish in.

_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one

Dude!!! Love the mugs and the carved ficus. I'd like to make some of my own mugs. How did you do the stewpot??
_________________"You're done, once you're a surfer you're done. You're in. It's like the mob or something. You're not getting out." - Kelly Slater

Thank you all for your kind comments, part of what makes TC such a great place is support like this.

Staredge I sent you a PM (the flashing icon at the top right of your screen)
Clarita good to hear from you, how's your mug-making going?
Tikiyaki I heard rumor that you had hogged up the rest of the shirts Glad to see they went to good use.

Thanks again
_________________May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hoping that the best one is the last one